Bom Caminho

We gathered five nights ago with Fresco Tours. It was our first night together as a group, the meeting of the other pilgrims and the breaking of bread together. Pilgrims, that’s how we are referred, because hiking the Camino is truly a pilgrimage of the heart, the soul, and the spirit. Whether one is hiking purely for cultural reasons or hiking to draw closer to God, the journey affects us all one way or another.

As of now, we have been hiking for many days with amazing places to stay at night. For one of those nights we were at Paço de Calheiros, the residence of a Count in Ponte de Lima, Portugal. The house is a 17th century manor house and is stunningly beautiful set high up on a hill with vineyards below.

Two days ago we set out to hike and cross from the Portugal side at Valença, to the Spain side at Tui. It was the one and only day which was a pleasant walk as all the rest have been very hot and humid.

Yesterday found us way up on Mount Santa Tecla overlooking the Castro de Santa Trega, which overlooks the surf of the Atlantic Ocean. An ancient Celtic settlement of hundreds of round stone-walled dwellings, dating from at least the 2nd to 1st centuries BC, the ruins have spectacular views south over the Rio Mino and across to what is now Portugal, and to the north along the Galician coast and the town of A Guarda.

Since there has been slow internet connection the past three nights I have not been able to upload and work on the blog. Therefore, you are having all those days crammed into this one blog to bring you up to speed as we have excellent connection here in Pontevedra.

Today we are exhausted and the trail you see above is pretty much what things looked like…outside of the crossing of major roadways with high speed vehicles coming at you. No, seriously, it was long, extremely hot and a number of us got lost for a bit. At the end of the day it is all good. For now, I bid you bon camino!